Any Woman's Blues_ A Novel of Obsession - Erica Jong [113]
One night we’re in the Piazza San Marco at one, listening to the band at Florian’s finishing up. As usual, they’re playing “New York, New York,” out of tune. We’re laughing about something, when suddenly we see a fifty-ish lady who looks like a waif.
“Let’s buy her a drink,” says Julian.
“Okay,” I say.
Julian gets up and invites her over. At first she demurs, but then, sensing it is safe (my presence comforts her), she joins us.
She’s from Ohio; her name is Gladys; she’s been an English teacher in Milan for nearly ten years. She loves Italy. Yes, she sometimes gets homesick.
With her scrawny neck, wispy brownish hair, beaky little nose, and inward-pointing teeth, she is one of those humans who most resemble a bird—even as Renzo is now merman, now Pan, as Julian is a dog (a silky white Maltese), as I am a ginger cat, as Dart is a big blond Labrador retriever (who turns, unpredictably, into a fox).
“You seem so happy,” says Gladys. “How long have you two been married?”
“Oh, forever,” says Julian.
“And where do you live?”
“In Malibu,” I say, “and in Connecticut. We divide the year.”
“And what’s the secret of your marriage?” asks Gladys wistfully.
“We don’t sleep together,” says Julian.
Gladys does a double take.
“That’s right,” says Julian. “I sleep in a box, and she sleeps in the bed. You’d be surprised how far that goes toward preserving our relationship.”
“You’re kidding,” says Gladys, half in disbelief, half in a desire to believe that someone somewhere has a good marriage, at whatever cost.
“Funny how it all got started,” I say. “One day we had a rather large appliance delivered to our house in Malibu—a washing machine, I think it was, or maybe a dryer. And my husband, Fred, here, said: ‘Darling, I’ve always wanted to sleep in a box—do you mind awfully if I try?’ ”
“You’re kidding,” says Gladys.
“Not at all,” says Julian. “So I filled the bottom of the box with a down quilt, a pillow, a teddy bear, and the like, and tried it out. I loved it! And ever since then, I’ve slept in the box, and Alice, here, sleeps in the bed. . . .”
“It’s not the same box, of course,” I say. “The first box wore out.”
“In fact, we just got a new box,” says Julian. “The secret of our marriage is that we have a constant supply of new boxes.”
Gladys looks quizzically from my face to Julian’s, wanting to believe yet not wanting to seem a fool (like all of us).
“You’re kidding,” she says.
“Not at all,” says Julian. “Marriage is difficult enough without both parties having to sleep in the same bed. The boxes are the answer.”
“You’re sure you’re not kidding?” asks Gladys.
“Sure,” I say, now sensing that the preservation of this little fiction is indispensable to all of us.
“What business are you in?” asks Gladys of Julian.
“The shoe business,” says Julian. “There’s no business like shoe business.”
“Interesting,” says Gladys.
“That’s why we come to Italy all the time,” I say, “because of the shoe business. They make the shoes near here—near Padova.”
“ ‘There’s no business like shoe business, like no business I know,’ ” sings Julian. Suddenly he looks at Gladys. “Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?”
She looks at him again in half disbelief, half wishful-ness, and her whole face softens. The beaky nose, the wispy hair, the sparrow-brown eyes become, in the transfiguration of his gaze, beautiful. I see how this fiction becomes, through the force of Julian’s intention, true. And I know that all our lives can be transfigured if we only have a strong enough intention and hold it like the laser beam of Julian’s beautiful eyes on Gladys’s now beautiful face.
The next evening I am in the lagoon with Renzo again, riding across the waters, singing.
The lagoon is strafed with setting sunlight, and the full moon rises on the opposite side of the sky. The seagulls